Former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari has become the first Nigerian to defeat a sitting president through the ballot box, putting him in charge of Africa’s most populous nation and its biggest economy.

Al Jazeera’s Yvonne Ndege, reporting from the capital Abuja, said Buhari was declared the winner after he gained 2.7 million more votes against his rival, incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan.

Our correspondent said that Buhari also managed to secure more than 25 percent of votes in 24 states, ruling out a run-off vote.
To win the election, Buhari had needed more than 50 percent of the total votes nationally – and take at least 25 percent of the vote in two thirds of the states.

Buhari supporters celebrate in Kano [Reuters]

“President Jonathan called General Muhammadu Buhari, the winner of the elections, to congratulate him,” Lai Mohammed, spokesman for the APC, said.

“Anyone who tries to foment trouble on the account that they have lost the election will be doing so purely on his own,” he added.

“We don’t have roads, electricty and the youth are looking for jobs,” one supporter said. “The people wanted change and change has now come.”

Here’s this week’s evolution column. It also ran in Monday’s issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

When Pennsylvania State University biologist Andrew Read injected mice with a component of several promising malaria vaccines, he got a disquieting result: The malaria parasites spread through the immunized mice and evolved to become more virulent.

Unvaccinated mice infected with these super-parasites got much sicker than those infected with ordinary malaria.

The findings, Read said, should not discourage research on malaria vaccines – the disease kills hundreds of thousands of African children every year, and the parasites tend to develop resistance to drugs. Between 15 and 20 vaccines are currently in clinical trials around the world, mostly in Africa. Read, who is trained as an evolutionary biologist, said he hopes his result will prompt vaccine researchers to consider how vaccines may affect the evolution of the parasites.

Read has also worked on the evolution of bacteria that resist antibiotics. In a provocative paper published last year, he suggested that typically prescribed doses of antibiotics can sometimes favor resistant strains. Smaller doses, which allow the immune system to kill resistant bacteria, could prove a better long-term approach.
Read more at Contact Faye Flam at 215-854-4977, fflam@phillynews.com, or follow on Twitter @fayeflam.

Abstract:

Malaria vaccine developers are concerned that antigenic escape will erode vaccine efficacy. Evolutionary theorists have raised the possibility that some types of vaccine could also create conditions favoring the evolution of more virulent pathogens. Such evolution would put unvaccinated people at greater risk of severe disease. …

On Thursday, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will announce that Microsoft is one of 30 inaugural Cornerstone Partners chosen to advance a science and technology-based approach to economic development.

The Global Development Lab’s mission is to help end the extreme poverty that affects 1.2 billion people on the planet living on just $1.25 a day by 2030. The lab will support breakthrough solutions in water, health, food security, nutrition, energy, education and climate change, reaching 200 million people in the next five years.

The business imperative? Citing Africa as an example, 50 percent of that continent’s 1 billion people are under the age of 20. Its middle class is exploding. And they are buying mobile devices. McKinsey recently reported that by 2025, Africa will be home to 600 million Internet users – many of whom will be children – contributing $300 billion to the continent’s gross domestic product. To put that into perspective, it’s double the total addressable market in the U.S.- by Posted April 3, 2014 by Anthony Salcito – Vice President, Worldwide Education, Microsoft. For more Click here.

In our exposé of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Free trade = Unemployment we pointed out this agency’s shameless outsourcing of American jobs.

Rajiv Shah – USAID Director and former Gates Foundation employee

Under director Rajiv Shah, USAID will partner with private outsourcers in Sri Lanka to teach workers there advanced IT skills like Enterprise Java programming, as well as skills in business process outsourcing and call center support—so they can replace American workers.

USAID will also partner with Armenia—a nation anxious to lure computer work from American workers—to promote the development of the country’s information technology industry.

Prior to taking over as head of USAID, Rajiv Shah was was employed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for seven long years! This reveals how the Gates Foundation really uses the U.S. government to promote Microsoft, and the outsourcing of American jobs.

DOCTOR Cherian Varghese of the World Health Organization is hoping that CNMI lawmakers will fight non-communicable diseases by creating policies that will encourage people make healthy choices and live a healthy lifestyle.

Varghese was on island to meet with officials of the Commonwealth Health Center, the Division of Public Health, lawmakers and various health organizations on island.

He noted that the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. is actively implementing programs that combat NCDs. But he said the whole of society must participate in order for NCDs to be addressed effectively.

He recommends the implementation of tobacco control. “It needs strict implementation until such time that the CNMI reaches the global goal of reducing tobacco consumption,” he said.

His other recommendation is regulating sugar-sweetened beverages.

He said although the community is knowledgeable about health matters, the Legislature should be implementing policies that will “help the society turn knowledge into behavior.” (Click For the whole article.)

A cigarette display in Australia, where the tobacco industry lost a case last year. Philip Morris International has filed suit under an investment treaty.Credit Conor Ashleigh for The New York Times

Tobacco companies are pushing back against a worldwide rise in antismoking laws, using a little-noticed legal strategy to delay or block regulation. The industry is warning countries that their tobacco laws violate an expanding web of trade and investment treaties, raising the prospect of costly, prolonged legal battles, health advocates and officials said.

The strategy has gained momentum in recent years as smoking rates in rich countries have fallen and tobacco companies have sought to maintain access to fast-growing markets in developing countries. Industry officials say that there are only a few cases of active litigation, and that giving a legal opinion to governments is routine for major players whose interests will be affected. (Click For the whole article.)

A Long Island woman’s insistence that President Obama follows her on Twitter made doctors at the Harlem Hospital psych ward think she was delusional and suffering from bipolar disorder — but she was actually telling the truth, a lawsuit charges.

Kam Brock’s frightening eight-day “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” ordeal at the mental facility included forced injections of powerful sedatives and demands she down doses of lithium, medical records obtained through her suit filed in Manhattan Federal Court show. – BY STEPHEN REX BROWN

Gates the social engineer, has tried his best to hasten passing Uganda Biosafety Bill, all to no avail. Now, he has finally come up with a tricky plan that will allow him to infiltrate legislative branches and influence in drafting laws that are to his liking.

Getty Images

His trick is telling everyone how evil Tobacco companies are, and how he could help fighting them in poor countries. The first thing as usual is show off his money and next is to dictate terms you must abide by to get that money.

One major condition to get funds for this project which he calls “Anti-Tobacco Trade Litigation Fund” is that he must be allowed to assist in legislative drafting laws, as he put it, the Anti-Tobacco Trade Litigation Fund includes the following:

Of course he had to attach himself to another person known for heath concerns – Michael Bloomberg former New York City mayor.

This is how he is remembered as some wrote: “Bloomberg leaves office Dec. 31 with a unique record as a public health crusader who attacked cigarettes, artery-clogging fats and big sugary drinks with as much zeal as most mayors go after crack dens and graffiti.”

You would think that the evils of tobacco were unknown to Gates until now! The truth of the matter is that if he really cared about lives lost due to tobacco smoking, he would start at home. With his money, he should lobby the congress to pass laws that he wants to be passed in other countries such as: (1) Same US Standard Cigarette Labeling Packages of all cigarette companies that are American, either made in US for export or within other countries for local consumption. (2). Universal Tobacco Victim Compensation programs.

(3). To stop inclusion of tobacco within the list of surplus crops to be distributed “to less developed or famine stricken regions of the world” through the Food For Peace program.

But instead, he wants to use his money to influence writing laws in poor countries, a job for elected officials that should never be influenced from without, especially by some private individual who has known vested interests in legislative drafting laws for GMOs, such as the so called Super Bananas.

Hopefully, such influence will be looked at for what it is. And that is “The Trojan Horse” – Payment for Technical assistance in influencing legislative drafting laws that are to his liking which will open a back door for genetically-modified crops.

As Tim Fernholz pointed out that: “The US initially released a proposal to create a specific safe harbor for anti-smoking laws in the TPP, but then walked it back to a more general public health standard that still leaves room for tobacco companies to bring disputes. While this partially reflects the still-considerable political clout of the shrinking US tobacco industry, the bigger fear in the business community is that it will open the door to safe harbors for other controversial products like alcohol, genetically-modified crops and sugary soft-drinks.”

Glyphosate is probably carcinogenic, researchers at a WHO agency said. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS

By JACOB BUNGE
March 20, 2015 5:05 p.m. ET

Glyphosate, a herbicide widely marketed by Monsanto Co. and other companies, likely has the potential to cause cancer in humans, a World Health Organization agency said Friday.

In classifying glyphosate as potentially cancer-causing, the international research agency cited studies of occupational exposure to glyphosate in the U.S., Canada and Sweden, which they wrote showed “increased risks for non-Hodgkin lymphoma” along with a positive trend for some ailments in mice in separate studies.

The assessment followed a meeting this month among 17 experts representing 11 countries, who evaluated the cancer-causing potential of glyphosate and four other pesticides. The research agency, which hasn’t previously classified glyphosate, monitors global cancer cases while trying to identify causes and responses.- (Article Excerpts)

By 2025, half the children born in the United States will be diagnosed with autism, says Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

“Is there a toxic substance that is currently in our environment on the rise in step with increasing rates of autism that could explain this?”

“The answer is yes, I’m quite sure that I’m right, and the answer is glyphosate.” (Excerpts from Article by Susan Scutti)

A new way of creating genetically modified insects could wipe out many mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria within a few years but it could also unleash potentially devastating unintended consequences, scientists have warned.

Researchers have devised a method of bypassing a fundamental barrier to the rapid spread of genes within a population. They believe that it could be used to spread malaria-resistant genes in mosquitoes to prevent transmission of disease to people.

However, it could also be used to spread harmful genes rapidly in the wild, which has led other researchers to call for the imposition of strict safety controls over such research in case of an accidental escape from a laboratory. (Excepts from Article by STEVE CONNOR )

More than 4,000 children in Karamajo, north-east Uganda, received food aid from the World Food Programme in summer last year. Photograph: Marc Hofer/WFP

There is a fairly big “aid industry” in the Karamoja region: alongside the WFP there are organisations such as Oxfam, Mercy Corps, Caritas, Save the Children, Kopein, Warriors Squad Foundation, Karamoja Diocese Development Services, Unicef, UN OCHA, World Vision and many more. Many of these NGOs already have a sizeable budget. According to local sources Mercy Corps, a medium-sized NGO, spends more than 10bn (£3m) Ugandan shillings; Oxfam will spend more than that. So while the WFP may be cutting back, others are still spending.

There has been food support for people in Karamoja since the early 1960s. NGOs are perceived locally as more corrupt in Karamoja than anywhere else in Uganda.

And here perhaps you see the more profound questions. Namely, why have agencies been in Karamoja for so long? How do they justify their presence? And in whose interests are they working? – Excerpts from article by Ben Jones

Functional MRI reveals the effect of prenatal methylmercury exposure in three adolescents Row B is a Control

March 11, 2014
The Nation: Scientists have linked heavy chronic pesticide exposure to cancer and birth defects. But what about low-dose continuing exposures—for example, the micrograms that a farmworker might carry home each night on the soles of her boots?

Or for those of us who don’t work on a farm, the traces that drift from a lawn or golf course, or remain in the dust after a landlord sprays, or that cling to a piece of fruit? CHAMACOS (the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas) has been examining these questions for 15 years. Professor Brenda Eskenazi, the study’s chief investigator, is quoted.

Another Strike Against GMOs – The Creation of (A) Superbugs and (B) Superweeds:

“It is getting worse,” said Bill Jordan, the EPA’s deputy head of pesticide programs.

Colvin • March 9, 2015
(WSJ) U.S. regulators for the first time are proposing limits on the planting of some genetically engineered corn to combat a voracious pest that has evolved to resist the bug-killing crops, a potential blow to makers of biotech seeds.

Conclusions:
Contrary to often-repeated claims that today’s genetically-engineered crops have, and are reducing pesticide use, the spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds in herbicide-resistant weed management systems has brought about substantial increases in the number and volume of herbicides applied.

Super weeds

If new genetically engineered forms of corn and soybeans tolerant of 2,4-D are approved, the volume of 2,4-D sprayed could drive herbicide usage upward by another approximate 50%.

The magnitude of increases in herbicide use on herbicide-resistant hectares has dwarfed the reduction in insecticide use on Bt crops over the past 16 years, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

A video showing individuals participating in a racist chant was posted on Sunday to Twitter by Unheard, which describes itself as “an alliance of black students organized for change within campus administration and atmosphere.” The video showed young men on a bus chanting, “There will never be a n***** at SAE.”

An African American Man Sentenced To 6 months in Jail For Over-Paying Child Support

Attorney General Eric Holder speaks at the Justice Department in Washington on Wednesday, March 4, 2015, about the department’s findings related to two investigations in Ferguson. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

In the aftermath of a scathing report showing Ferguson unfairly targeted African-Americans and preyed on its most vulnerable citizens, the Justice Department is asking the city to make more than two dozen changes to the city’s police department and municipal courts — or face a costly lawsuit.

It describes a city government that uses its police and courts as an ATM, tolerating a culture of police brutality while pressuring the police chief and court officials to increase traffic enforcement and fees without regard to public safety.

It exposes a court run by the police department that routinely violates due process and intentionally inflicts pain on the most vulnerable residents and whose supervisors circulated racially insensitive emails, one of which in 2011 depicted President Barack Obama as a chimpanzee.

DISCRIMINATORY POLICIES AND PRACTICES:

Despite making up 67 percent of the population, African-Americans have accounted for 85 percent of all traffic stops, and were the subject of 90 percent of the citations and 93 percent of the arrests made by Ferguson police over the last two years.

One of the charges where blacks are cited more often than whites: “Manner of Walking,” which is issued to blacks 95 percent of the time.

POLICE AS DEBT COLLECTORS:

Ferguson’s municipal court revenue has shown consistent growth, year by year. In 2010, the city’s municipal court generated $1.38 million in fines and fees, the report said.

For the current year, the city’s budget anticipates fines and fees of $3.09 million.

The Justice Department’s report on Ferguson said the city used its police department as “a collection agency.” -By Stephen Deere, Chuck Raasch, Jeremy Kohler (Excerpts from the article, except the links included withnin)

ONE OF AGRICULTURAL biotechnology’s great success stories may become a cautionary tale of how short-sighted mismanagement can squander the benefits of genetic modification.

There’s a lesson to be learned for future crop traits, Shields said. Rootworm resistance was expected from the outset, but the Bt seed industry, seeking to maximize short-term profits, ignored outside scientists. The next pest-fighting trait “will fall under the same pressure,” said Shields, “and the insect will win. Always bet on the insect if there is not a smart deployment of the trait.” (by RANDON KEIM SCIENCE – article excerpts)

Protests have sprung up across South Africa that question the safety of GMO foods. Photo credit: March Against Monsanto South Africa Facebook Page

The African Centre for Biosafety lodged a complaint with the ASA following an advertisement on Radio 702 that claimed genetically engineered crops “enable [Monsanto] to produce more food sustainably whilst using fewer resources; provide a healthier environment by saving on pesticides; decrease greenhouse gas emissions and increase crop yields substantially.” by John Deike

A new bipartisan bill that would give Americans more information about what’s in their food was reintroduced on Thursday, Feb. 12 in both the U.S. Senate and House, as announced on the Center for Food Safety’s website. The bill, introduced by Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rep. Peter DeFazio […]

An Accra Fast Track High Court has halted the production and sale of Genetically Modified cowpeas and rice in Ghana.

The court said the Agriculture Ministry cannot approve the sale of GMOs until it rules on a case brought before it by the Food Sovereignty Ghana (FSG).

According to the FSG, the government cannot go ahead to implement the process for genetically modified foods since it has failed to comply with the provisions of the main Biosafety Act. – Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM

Save The Last Dance For Meeee – The Winner Takes it All. Faster than ‘Lightning Bolt’

Elizabeth Warren can run for president. She should run for president. And despite her denials, she probably will.

Elizabeth Warren today told Fortune magazine that she won’t run for president. If Warren stands by that decision, she’ll do a tremendous disservice to her principles and her party.- by Charles Dharapak/AP

“I jokingly say that arsenic makes lead look like a vitamin … the arsenic effects … impact everything that’s going on, every organ system.”- Joseph Graziano, professor at Columbia University who led Maine research

Rice often readily absorbs arsenic from soil where chemical-heavy cotton once grew

Consistent exposure to even small amounts of arsenic has been linked to several diseases, many of which are fatal. Arsenic is so toxic that it causes many different cancers, including skin cancer, lung cancer, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, liver cancer and prostate cancer. Over consumption of arsenic has also been linked to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, reproductive problems, and it is known to compromise the immune system.

How Arsenic Gets into Rice:

Many plants can absorb arsenic from its environment and rice is one those plants. Rice absorbs high amounts of arsenic from the soil, from water and from pesticides. Unfortunately, with so much arsenic contaminating the soil and water, organic rice can contain dangerous levels of arsenic even though it has not been exposed to pesticides. Counter-intuitively, there are actually higher levels of arsenic found in brown rice than in white rice. – by: Joel Edwards

Uganda’s biggest public health threat is the drain of its medical brains to Trinidad and Tobago.

A midwife examines a pregnant woman. Credits to Lydia Ainomugisha.

“It is different if a government official, whose sole mandate is to protect the citizen’s interests, decides to undermine their health by diverting resources to Trinidad, which has 10 times as many doctors,” he told the Mail & Guardian. Based on World Health Organisation figures, Trinidad’s doctor-to-patient ratio is 12 times better than that of Uganda.- Excerpts from Article by AMY FALLON

Why does Bill Gates refuse to accept Liability for GMOs, yet supporting GMO food research you may ask. That answer seems to be a guarded secret that he may never share publicly.

But his smile and his answer when asked weather or not he supports Genetically modified food make a good combination, summed up as if to say – “I’m just a funder, when it comes to GMO safety- Africa you are on your own I have nothing to do with that.”

Assertions before safety trials that GMOs are hundred percent safe and that no report world over to the effect that GMOs can harm people, especially coming from the ones supposed to carry out those very tests is very unsettling to say the least.

Those individuals should explain to the public and members of the parliament why Farmers were told GM crops are ‘too dangerous to insure‘

Feb. 20th, 2015: “GMO-derived seeds will provide far better productivity, better drought tolerance, salinity tolerance, and if the safety is proven, then the African countries will be among the biggest beneficiaries,” Bill Gates told The Verge on Friday.

Note conditional phrase: “if the safety is proven.” Yet we have those charged with proving GMO food safety already adamantly assuring the public and law makers that GMOs are hundred percent safe even before safety tests are conducted! Go figure.

Professor David Suzuki speaks out against GMO’s

Mr. Verhoef is in farming to make money, GMO companies are in it to make money too, but when Mr. Verhoef says that he has been there and done that, and now tells you that he has no plans to go back to genetically engineered varieties; let the wise take heed.

Authorities planning to commercially release crops which could be ‘dangerous’ to locals, suit says.

A GHANAIAN civil society group, Food Sovereignty Ghana (FSG), has moved to court in Accra seeking to have the country’s National Biosafety Committee and the agriculture ministry prevented from releasing and commercialising genetically modified cowpeas and rice.

The group in its suit at the high court argues that the authorities have not complied with the provisions of the main Biosafety Act. (Check out this)

This is what Joseph said in his famous speech on Birmingham on 19 October 1974:

The balance of our population, our human stock is threatened. A recent article in Poverty, published by the Child Poverty Action Group, showed that a high and rising proportion of children are being born to mothers least fitted to bring children into the world and bring them up.

Originally devised and tested to emit osteoporosis medication into elderly women, this technology was rerouted by MIT’s Dr. Robert Langer to target birth control – after his discussion with billionaire Bill Gates.

With many already wary of what they consider to be the Gates Foundation’s global population-control agenda spreading across Africa, this latest innovation was preceded by Melinda Gate’s statement in June that the foundation “has decided not to fund abortion” in its endeavors. However, according to multiple studies, the hormone emitted by the microchip (and morning-after pills) – levonorgestrel – strongly deters newly conceived embryos from becoming implanted in a uterus.- by Michael F. Haverluck

Q. Are fears around overpopulation an impediment in your day-to-day work? -EK.

For example, at least 57 clients of the Swiss HSBC bank associated with Uganda were reported to be worth at least 159 million dollars. The World Bank has estimated that Uganda loses more than 174.5 million dollars in corruption annually.- By Jeffrey Moyo

Graph 1 and Table 1 give the overall picture. Roughly half of the foundation’s grants for agriculture went to four big groupings: the CGIAR’s global agriculture research network, international organisations (World Bank, UN agencies, etc.), AGRA (set up by Gates itself) and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF).

The other half ended up with hundreds of different research, development and policy organisations across the world. Of this last group, over 80% of the grants were given to organisations in the US and Europe, 10% went to groups in Africa, and the remainder elsewhere.

Putting your money where your mouth is:

In 2007, the Los Angeles Times revealed that hundreds of Gates Foundation investments – totalling at least $8.7 billion, or 41% of its assets – were in companies that ran counter to the foundation’s charitable goals or social philosophy.

The Gates Foundation maintains that “access to diverse, nutritious foods is fundamental to good health” but its food related investments go almost exclusively to the fast food industry. A stunning $3.1 billion went to companies like Coca Cola, McDonald’s, Pepsico, Burger King, and KFC in 2012.

The Foundation has $1 billion tied up in the world’s largest supermarket chain, Walmart, which is a major force driving out small farms in favour of large suppliers.14 The Gates Foundation has also bought $23 million in shares of the world’s leading producer of genetically engineered crops, Monsanto.- by grain.org

From an economic and demographic perspective Africa must be viewed as “the land of opportunity” for beer producers. Considering that seven out the world’s ten fastest growing economies are in Africa and that over 60% of the continent’s population is below the age of 25 years old, it is evident that Africa holds unprecedented opportunities for beer producers – existing and new. – By Frank Sjoberg.

The world’s second-largest beer company gets its highest 2013 +%profit change from Africa.

The world’s second-largest beer company eyes the alcoholism capital of Africa:

SABMiller, the world’s second-largest beer company, has strategically ventured into Cassava Beer Aimed at Beating African Homebrews in a territory that has unmatched unquenchable thirst for alcohol. SABMiller wants to cash in on Uganda’s oil boom, and knows very well that many oil deals will be done over a beer.

As I read – ” Government is to promote the growing of cassava to help substitute barley in manufacturing industries”, I think of a few reasons for such a statement; the first one is money from Bill and Melinda Gates foundation in exchange for Developing Genetically Modified Cassava in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“There’s a huge problem with drinking in Uganda and most African countries,” says University of North Dakota neuroscience professor Sharon Wilsnack, who studies alcohol-related behavior. “The sad thing is that they have so many other problems that drinking doesn’t get much attention, yet they’re all connected. If you’re drunk all the time, you can’t get job training and climb out of poverty.” – by Anneli Rufus

The prospect for the development of genetically modified (GM) orphan crops is reviewed from various perspectives. The article specifically assesses the potential constraints for developing GM cassava based on typical patterns of past genetic modification technology application on crops, the low level of basic research that has been done on cassava, African stakeholders’ perceptions on GM crops in general, and regulation issues for cassava.

Nollywood is becoming a popular tool used to influence Nigerians and Africans to adopt just about anything, including GMO foods, a health risk.

Composed by Kevin Onuma for InformAfrica

InformAfrica – There is a new food crop in town called “Vitamin A Cassava” or “Yellow Cassava“, that was genetically developed by HarvestPlus under the guise of helping Nigerians and Africans to end lack of food nutrition or vitamin deficiency; and they hired Nollywood actors to help promote the farming and consumption of the new genetically engineered yellow cassava.

Most of the world’s food is grown by small scale farmers. While it is called “traditional” agriculture, it is never static and farmers constantly adapt. This traditional agriculture relies on a varied and changing mix of crops, a polyculture, which provides a balanced diet, is affordable for local farmers and can accommodate changing local conditions.

The Green Revolution relied on increasing acreages of monocultures, mostly cereal grains, which also increased the use of herbicides, insecticides and fertilizers as well as new varieties of high yielding crops. Inputs that small farmers, those who fed the people, were never meant to afford.

Sometime after the Great Crash of 2016, Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen will be testifying before Congress, just like Alan Greenspan was forced to do in 2008. She will be explaining why America has already had three megacrashes in the 21st Century, each draining roughly $10 trillion, each a direct result of Federal Reserve policy failures. She will be forced to explain why the Great Crash of 2016 was a clone of the bank credit crash of 2008 and the 2000 excesses.

On the 74th floor of the Time Warner Center, Condominium 74B was purchased in 2010 for $15.65 million by a secretive entity called 25CC ST74B L.L.C. It traces to the family of Vitaly Malkin, a former Russian senator and banker who was barred from entering Canada because of suspected connections to organized crime.

Last fall, another shell company bought a condo down the hall for $21.4 million from a Greek businessman named Dimitrios Contominas, who was arrested a year ago as part of a corruption sweep in Greece.

Robertson’s story is also a story of job migration, the failures of public transit, and especially of poverty. His commute highlighted the fact the working poor have commuting expenses twice as high as other workers, and because poverty makes ordinarily things like getting around very, very hard.

Furthermore, the response to Robertson’s story showed a classically American kind of nearsighted problem-solving: reducing every political question to the stories of individuals, and believing that helping those individuals can substitute for addressing systemic causes. – Excerpts from Nathan J. Robinson’s article.

Risk assessment and management

The new rules would allow member states to ban GMOs on environmental policy grounds other than the risks to health and the environment already assessed by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
Member states could also ban GMO crops on other grounds, such as town and country planning requirements, socio-economic impact, avoiding the unintended presence of GMOs in other products and farm policy objectives. Bans could also include groups of GMOs designated by crop or trait. – evolibrary

This letter is in solidarity with farmers and communities in Africa and around the world, which have resisted the genetic modification of their staple foods- from Ghana, Kenya and Zambia- to Mexico, India and the Philippines. We will not stand by idly as attempts are made to systematically genetically modify Africa’s staple foods and in the process gain a massive positive public relations coup by claiming to have conquered health problems at the unnecessary risk to Africans.

Finally, we demand that the full contents of this open letter are shared with the human subjects of these trials in the USA.

Ugandan food advocates, backed by dozens of food freedom groups worldwide, told the Gates Foundation today to take the GMO banana they’re helping develop and well, they said they don’t want it and don’t need it.

Lack of genetic variation in Irish potatoes contributed to the severity of the Irish potato famine, which devastated Ireland’s population and economy. Today, evolutionary theory tells us that relying on crops with low genetic variation can lead to disaster. Heeding the warnings of scientists and history may help us prevent wide-scale crop devastation due to changing environmental conditions.

Ignoring history

Despite the warnings of evolution and history, much agriculture continues to depend on genetically uniform crops. The widespread planting of a single corn variety contributed to the loss of over a billion dollars worth of corn in 1970, when the U.S. crop was overwhelmed by a fungus. And in the 1980s, dependence upon a single type of grapevine root forced California grape growers to replant approximately two million acres of vines when a new race of the pest insect, grape phylloxera (Daktulosphaira vitifoliae, shown at right) attacked in the 1980s.

Although planting a single, genetically uniform crop might increase short term yields, evolutionary theory and the lessons of history highlight an undesirable side effect. Planting genetically uniform crops increases the risk of “losing it all” when environmental variables change: for example, if a new pest is introduced or rainfall levels drop.

Vitamin A: Pre-formed vitamin A exists only in animal products. However, there are about 50 carotenoids that the body can convert into vitamin A; the most common is beta-carotene. Major sources are Carrots, Sweet Potatoes, Pumpkins, Spinach, Cantaloupe, Kale, Broccoli, Mangoes, Watermelon, Tomatoes, Collard Greens, Lettuce, Okra, Celery and many other vegetables that are either easily available and/or can be easily grown in Uganda and many other parts of Africa.

A controversial plan to have Iowa State University students eat genetically modified bananas has been delayed, apparently because of issues in shipping the fruit.

The bananas, created by an Australian scientist, contain a gene that is supposed to help people living in Africa produce vitamin A. Proponents say the gene came from a different type of banana and is completely safe to eat. But opponents contend the trial could expose volunteers to unknown dangers.

A supplementation has been advocated. It is, however, complicated by the intrinsic hepatotoxicity of retinol, which is potentiated by concomitant alcohol consumption. By contrast, β-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A, was considered innocuous until recently, when it was found to also interact with ethanol, which interferes with its conversion to retinol. Furthermore, the combination of β-carotene with ethanol results in hepatotoxicity.

Moreover, in smokers who also consume alcohol, β-carotene supplementation promotes pulmonary cancer and, possibly, cardiovascular complications. Experimentally, β-carotene toxicity was exacerbated when administered as part of beadlets. Thus ethanol, while promoting a deficiency of vitamin A also enhances its toxicity as well as that of β-carotene. This narrowing of the therapeutic window for retinol and β-carotene must be taken into account when formulating treatments aimed at correcting vitamin A deficiency, especially in drinking populations.

This research confirms what Food & Water Watch and concerned residents of the Florida Keys have been saying all along: releasing genetically engineered mosquitoes into the environment will not be worth the effort, expense and potential risk. Oxitec has shown that its technology can decrease the population of yellow fever mosquitos, but not necessarily the spread of dengue fever itself.

Since Oxitec’s GMO mosquitoes aren’t likely to stop dengue fever, maybe they should just buzz off.

And there would be no protective satiety level.” Ms. Cohen was pointing out the industry’s Achilles’ heel: ingesting large quantities of vitamins is unnatural, the opposite of what manufacturers were promoting.

A little more than a month later, Mr. Proxmire’s bill passed by a vote of 81 to 10. In 1976, it became law. Decades later, Peter Barton Hutt, chief counsel to the F.D.A., wrote that “it was the most humiliating defeat” in the agency’s history.

As a result, consumers don’t know that taking megavitamins could increase their risk of cancer and heart disease and shorten their lives; they don’t know that they have been suffering too much of a good thing for too long.Paul A. Offit is the chief of the infectious diseases division of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the author of the forthcoming book “Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is investing in companies that could be causing ailments in the very people it helps to treat in the developing world, according to an investigation by the Los Angeles Times.

Senegalese can’t wait to take Gates on his offer of drinking his poop water, after all, what an honour it must be for poor Africans to share a drink with the richest man on planet! By the end of this year, this dream is going to turn into a reality for those city dwellers of CAPE VERDE PENINSULA.

“I watched the piles of feces go up the conveyer belt and drop into a large bin. They made their way through the machine, getting boiled and treated. A few minutes later I took a long taste of the end result: a glass of delicious drinking water.”

“Bananas are to Ugandans what potatoes are to Americans or rice is to East Asian countries,” Dale said.

But even before they’ve gone on sale, some of the very biggest potato buyers seem to be backing away from them.

Frito-Lay, the biggest potato chip maker, and McDonald’s have both issued statements saying that they are not planning to use the Simplot potatoes in their products. An executive at another potato chip company told The Salt that his company does not plan to use those potatoes. He didn’t even want to be quoted on the subject for fear that someone would mistakenly get the opposite impression.

“When you ask consumers if they’re comfortable with this technology, they are not,” – by Dan Charles is NPR’s food and agriculture correspondent.

Right now, the researchers rely on mosquitoes to inject the weakened parasites into people. But wrangling mosquitoes on a large scale would not be practical.

The alternative is to mass produce parasites and formulate them into an injection. It’s been done on a small scale, but since the parasites can only complete their life cycle inside mosquitoes, it requires large colonies of the insects and painstaking extraction of the parasites.-By Sandi DoughtonThe Seattle Times

As part of its $1 billion effort to make contraceptives more accessible to women in the developing world, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is joining with a pharmaceutical company and other aid groups to produce and distribute a simpler version of an old drug.

“They give us just AK47s to go into the bush to fight Boko Haram,” the soldier said. “Our equipment doesn’t work and they give us just two magazines to go into the bush.” Two magazines contain approximately 60 bullets. The soldier said that many in the Nigerian army have also been discontented by delays in receiving their salaries, sometimes waiting weeks or months to be paid.“We feel so bad because we … are trying, the soldiers are trying our best,” the soldier told Sky, “but the civilians don’t realize what the Nigerian army is issued with, what they are given to go and fight the Boko Haram.”Goodluck Jonathan gives out customised 24ct Gold iPhones:By Omotola Filani on April 12, 2014customised-24ct gold i-phonePresident Goodluck Jonathan’s first Child, Faith married her boo, Godswill Osim Edward today in at the Abuja Ecumenical Centre.The ceremony was broadcast live on NTA, where many state governors and other dignitaries were in attendance.Guests at the wedding received customised i-phones ( Each cost £3995.00 or over US $6,620.00 per i-phone,- Goldstriker) designed by Actress Tonto Dikeh’s.The phones were packed in white packs with a golden ‘thank you’ for coming note’

Welcome to a blog with a difference - humorous, thought provoking, brain teasing, factual and developmental.Although it is a forum, the original idea of bedside readings remains intact. That is why writing and publication of mini articles will continue there upon enabling subsquent discussions to be developed around them. Note: Any text in this colour such as this, is a link. Just click on it to go to that article. Scroll to the right of this page and browse through the complete list of topics and articles. Click on the one you are interested in to access it.The objectives of the forum are to:

Share humour

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Challenge each other intellectually and provoke new thinking – original, abstract, common sense or otherwise

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Not to be used by individuals or groups as a platform for propaganda against any type of Institution or Organisation – however, constructive criticism is welcome

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Any discussion which encourages challenging other contributors’ ideas creates inevitable differences between differing schools of thought. Such differences should be handled maturely and professionally – by expressing differing opinions, but at the same time showing respect for other contributors’ opinions.You are all welcome and encouraged to contribute articles and comments which support the theme of bedside readings.